Obamacare and Faith-Based Hospitals

An article in the Baptist Standard, Obamacare changes the way faith-based hospitals deliver care, says that no matter one’s opinion, the new law has made an impact on healthcare delivery. It says that while there’s agreement that the law “is far from perfect, healthcare providers don’t have the luxury of watching all the wrangling from the sidelines.”

“It is a travesty in the most sophisticated democracy on the face of the earth that nearly 50 million Americans do not have access to the health insurance system as you and I know it,” Hugh Greene, CEO of Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Fla. told the Standard. “We see them in the form of the uninsured who come to our emergency rooms on a daily basis.” The article continues:

Greene says the Affordable Care Act “is the most significant and complex piece of healthcare legislation in this country since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.”

“Nothing comes close,” he said.

The bill in its current form has many flaws, he asserted. Malpractice reform, a huge factor driving up costs of healthcare, did not make it into the law for political reasons. Unlike Medicare, which was tweaked after passage to address unintended consequences, Greene said, the current deadlock in Congress makes it highly unlikely fixes are coming anytime soon.

Hospitals voluntarily took a cut in the amount they are reimbursed by Medicare, thinking the increase in newly insured patients from Medicaid expansion would more than make up the difference, Greene said. They didn’t anticipate the Supreme Court ruling that states could refuse to accept federal funds to expand Medicaid coverage, and that a number of them would do so.

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